


i heard you say you weren't born of a blood

by piggy09



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 16:24:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2235615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She leans in and kisses Delphine on the cheek, her lips dry (Delphine knows why she was expecting them to be wet, and her stomach rolls, sick); this close she smells of perfume, and blood. Mostly blood.</p><p>Delphine pretends that she only smells perfume. She smiles at Cosima, loving, her lips tightly closed.</p><p>She does not think Cosima wants to see her teeth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i heard you say you weren't born of a blood

**Author's Note:**

> From a prompt on Tumblr:
> 
> "Cophine. tfln: how does spending your day off taking me to the hospital sound?"

Delphine has just arrived at the park when her phone lets out a discreet buzz; she lets out a small curse in French and fumbles through her purse. _Dear God_ , she prays, _do not let it be work_.

It’s not work.

>Cosima Niehaus  
 _how does spending your day off taking me to the hospital sound? ;)_

Oh, Delphine wishes it was work.

* * *

She arrives at their apartment, key fumbling in the door (her hands are shaking; Delphine does not want to admit it, but her hands are shaking), to find Cosima bundled on the couch. Red blooms on tissues around her like a rose garden. It’s a parody of summertime, especially with Cosima trembling, slightly, like from some imagined chill.

“Hey,” she croaks, attempting to light up when Delphine enters the room. She flickers like a dead bulb, goes out, gropes for a tissue next to her in time to cough into it. “Get my booty call? Master of seduction, right?”

“Ah yes,” Delphine replies, voice wavering as she moves over to the couch, “there is nothing a girl likes more than a hospital visit, _c’est vrai?_ ”

“Vray,” Cosima says back, American accent warping the word in a way that is charming and ridiculous. “Mm, fluorescence.”

Then she coughs again. When she’s finished, she leans over the tissue balled in her fists with her eyes squeezed tightly closed. Her breaths rattle. Delphine can see the individual knobs of Cosima’s spine; she is torn between wanting to stroke them, letting the delicate pads of her fingers send goosebumps blooming on Cosima’s spine, and wanting to wrap Cosima in so many blankets that she cannot be seen at all.

Hide her. Protect her.

She’s torn.

“Come on,” she says, jolting herself out of her dizzying thoughts, “let’s go, then, Miss ‘master of seduction’.” She wraps an arm around the bird-bones of Cosima’s shoulders and helps her stand. Cosima leans into her but is stiff in a way that says she does not want Delphine to comment on it. So Delphine just rubs a careful hand on the skin of Cosima’s upper arm and leads her out the door.

* * *

Cosima in the hospital waiting room is a difficult creature to look at. The light brings out the bones lurking underneath her skin; looking at Cosima is like killing her, over and over again. It is a difficult thing for Delphine to do – but to not do it feels like cowardice – but to do it is to meet Cosima’s eyes and watch her attempt to pull up a smile she cannot quite manage. It is kinder, Delphine thinks firmly, to look at the magazine she is not even pretending to read. It is the kinder thing to do.

(Cosima is struggling with pretending she’s alright, but Delphine thinks that pretending is the only thing keeping Cosima from collapsing into a pile of bones and skin and sorrow.)

Still, looking at her magazine only sharpens her other senses – she can hear Cosima rustling in her chair, hear the short pants of her breath that say she is afraid. She can hear the way coughs pull themselves from Cosima’s throat, harsh and bitter as an argument. If anyone it is arguing, it is Cosima and her body. They are very much at odds.

Her other senses give her: the smell of the hospital, anesthetic cleanliness spread thin over the stench of the dying; the dry, stale taste of her mouth (not blood); the absence where Cosima’s skin is not touching her own.

She burns with the need to touch Cosima. She does not. She waits, as she always has, for Cosima to make the first move.

Cosima’s name is called. She leans in and kisses Delphine on the cheek, her lips dry (Delphine knows why she was expecting them to be wet, and her stomach rolls, sick); this close she smells of perfume, and blood. Mostly blood.

Delphine pretends that she only smells perfume. She smiles at Cosima, loving, her lips tightly closed.

She does not think Cosima wants to see her teeth.

* * *

The wait for Cosima is a weight in Delphine’s chest. She feels as empty as the waiting room, all bright lights and silence, harsh on the eyes and ears and skin. Somewhere in the belly of this beast Cosima is alone, undergoing tests. She must be very small, without her layers and jingling jewelry. In a hospital gown Cosima must look like an animal.

She does not want Cosima to be an animal. She wants Cosima to be _Cosima_ , those visceral blood-earth colors, the flash of white teeth when she laughs. Cosima all bones-under-skin is not really, she thinks, Cosima at all.

No, no, not Cosima at all. Cosima’s illness waxing, rising ripe as summer under her skin, ripe as rot. Pull Cosima’s skin away and she is roses and the dirt that feeds them.

 _Blood-earth_ , Delphine thinks with a lurch of guilt, but no, not like that. Never like that. Not Cosima.

She is lost in thinking about Cosima, the way she always is these days, so lost that she does not hear Cosima proper approach her until there is a gentle brush of fingers on that space between Delphine’s neck and her shoulder. It is near her collarbone. (It is near her heart.)

“I’m so sorry,” she gasps to Cosima (because of course it is Cosima), who grins at her wryly. The hospital light brings out all the small and tender lines on her face; Delphine wants to kiss them, she wants to wipe them away and restore Cosima to – well. Before.

“I must have fallen asleep,” she continues, knowing this is a lie. Cosima pulls further into herself the sicker she becomes, and Delphine, left with no outlet, is forced to do the same.

“No prob,” Cosima says, still grinning, strained, “not exactly the easiest place to stay awake in.”

Delphine stands up; they move to go. Cosima’s hand wraps tightly around Delphine’s own. She isn’t sure which set of fingers is shaking.

* * *

They don’t make it very far from the hospital before Cosima makes a small sound and begins to cry, rough and jagged noises. Delphine pulls over to the side of the road mechanically, unfastens her seatbelt mechanically; she is saving every scrap of human intent for embracing Cosima, her arms tight around the smaller woman’s body.

Useless words line up in her mouth like another set of teeth: _I’m sorry. I love you. It is going to be alright_.

Some of them, she thinks, may even be true.

**Author's Note:**

> I heard you tellin' lies  
> I heard you say you weren't born of our blood  
> I know we're the crooked kind  
> But you're crooked too, boy, and it shows  
> \--"The Crooked Kind," Radical Face


End file.
